AMP I ' I I T 1: ED 023 339 FL 001 (.190 By -Gcwden. Raymond L Ifltt Irivoers.on in the rof eign Culture AntiocON Coll.. Yellow Springs. Ohio. Spons Agency -Office of Education (DHEW), Washin:iton, DC Bureau c.f Research. Bureaki No-BR 7-0267 Pub Date 68 Contract -OEC1 -7 -070267 -3973 Note -7Op. LOPS Price MF -S050 f-IC -$390 Descriptors -College Lan.guage Programs, Corranunozation (Thought Transfer),*Cross Cultural Training. C.Atural Dif ferences. CulturalEnvironment,CuitureConflict. Foreign Culture. Idioms.*InstructionalMater:als. Inernational Edvcation, *Latin American Culture, Sociolinguistics. *Spanish,Study Abroad Identifiers -Colombia Thisisthefirstunitina series ofinstructional materials arising from an exploratory study of cultural barriers to communicationbetween North Americans and Colombians. A 5y1logistic model. in which our unspoken and unconsciousassumptions comprise the maior premise. isused toexplainthedifficultiesof intercultural communication. These silent assumptions arerevealed and explained through the material presented. which consists of (1) a physical descriptionof Bogota, highlighting the foreigner's first impressions.(2) the experiences and impressionsof one composite North American student upon arrivalinthecity, and (3) a case studyof a cross-cultural misunderstanding involving the Colombianfamily unit. An appendix lists idioms peculiar to Colombian Spanish. For companion documents, seethe original exploratory study. FL 001 088 and Unit 2 of theinstructional materials. FL 001 089. (OS) U.S. DEPARTMENT Of HEALTH, EDUCATION & WELFARE 44"-"Br'7-P'd -7? OFFICE OF EDUCATION THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRODUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVEDFROM THE PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGINATING IT.POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS STATED DO NOT NMESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OFEDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY. IN THE FOREIGN CULTURE INITIAL IMMERRION IN TEE FOREIGN CULTURE by Raymond L. Gorden The research reported herein was performed pursuant to Contract #1.7.070267.3973 with the Office of Education, United States Department of Health, Education and Wel . fare. Antioch College Yellow Springs, Ohio 1968 These materials are based upon.researchdone in Colombia under contract # 1-7-070267-3973 between Antioch College(administrative agent for the Latin America Program of the Great Lakes Colleges Association) and the U.S. Office of Education in cooperationwith CEUCA (Centro de Estudios Universitarios Colombo-Americano) which is the GLCA Center in Bogotd. The project is locally known in Bogota as Proyecto IDET (Investigaci6n Desarrollo de la EducaciánTranscultural). i Contents Page ii Introduction to theseries . 2 I. Bogota . a .. 2 A. A backgroundsketch ofBogota 3 B. Immediate impressions '0 ' 5 C. Residential areas . 8 II. John's arrival 16 III. Discussion of John'sarrival .. 16 .. A. linguistic factors 17 I. ColombianismoS . 19 2, Localismos . 20 B. Non-linguistic factors . 38 C. Summary of John'sarrival . house? 39 IV. A case incident: Family or boarding 43 V. Discussion andanalysis . 57 VI. Summary 62 Appendix I. Colombianismos Tables General Table 1 - Numberand Percent ofPersons in Categories in theBogota Host FamilyHouse- 46 holds of Persons in Table 2 - The Numberand Percentages CategorY Foundin 43 Colombian Each Specific 47 Host Households North AmericanGuests Table 3 - ThePercentage of 49 Who UsuallyEat Each MealAlone . 53 Table 4 . Guests'Possesion of Keyto House Introduction to the Series This unit is one of a series aimed at exploring,discovering and analysing the non-linguistic barriers tocommunication be- tween North Americans and Latin Americans. Bach unit in the series illustrates the basic ideathat in any communicative actbetween human beings the meaning is not entirely contained within the message as is the peanutwithin its shell. Instead, the functional meaning results from the interaction in men's minds between the overt stated messageand the covert unstated assumptions which provide the silentcontext for interpreting the meaning of the message. Therefore, the success of any particular messagedepends upon not only the communicators' sharing a common vocabulary, syntaxand grammar, but also their sharing a common set of beliefs andvalues. This interaction between the message and the silent as- sumptions has been made more explicit in thesyllogistic model of cross-cultural communication which can bestated as follows: The meaning in ahy cross-culturalcommunication is like the conclusion of a syllogism inwhich the stat- ed message is the minor premise and themajor premise consists of those culturally based,usually uncon- scious, assumptions which are unstatedyet supply the silent context for the interpretation ofthe meaning of the message. From this model we can deduce thatcross-cultural com- munication can break down in two basicallydifferent ways even when the verbal message(minor premise) is clearly shared by sender and receiver: (a) If there is a discrepancy betweenthe major premises held by the two com- municators, it is possible for each to draw different conclusionsfrom the same message. (b) If the communicators have strong nega- tive attitv.des toward each other which involve the messages being exchanged, they may arrive at different conclu- sions even though they share the same major premise, because their emotions interfere with the logical process of drawing a conclusion consistent with the major and minor premises. A U.S.-Colombian team of interviewers and participant ob- servers studied the interaction between North Americans (GLCA students and Peace CorpsTrainees)1and the Latin Americans with whom they communicated in Bogota, Colombia. The first step was to discover examples of miscommunication and to ferret out which were caused by non-linguistic differences between the two cultures rather than by the North American's im- perfect command of Spanish. The major focus of the search was for differences between the two cultures, as represented by these specific North Ameri- cans and Latin Americans, which comprised dissonant major prem- ises in the syllogistic model. In some cases the difference between cultural patterns would be the same for any North Ameri- can communicating with any Latin American. This occurs when the North American pattern is uniform throughout the United States, Lhd the LatinAmerican pattern is also uniform throughowe Latin 1 These college students and Peace Corps Trainees were all involved in the program at CEUCA (the Centro de Estudios Univer- sitarios Colombo-Americano) administered by Antioch College for the Great Lakes Colleges Association (GLCA). This association includes twelve colleges (Albion, Antioch, Denison, De Pauw, Earlham, Hope, Kalamazoo, Kenyon, Oberlin, Ohio Wesleyan, Wabash, and Wooster) all private institutions in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. - iii- America. An example of this type of barrier is the Spanish per- sonal naming system as it clashez with the North American system. The degree of universality of other cultural differences has not yet been determined. In these cases the patterns found in Bogota, may not be applicable to all Latin America; or the patterns typical of these particular North Americans may not be found in all sub-cultures (sex, age, sccial class, race, reli- gion, or region) of the United States. Although a unit derived from these differences does not serve as a specific guide to any North American communicating with any Latin American, such a unit fulfills several useful functions: (a) It helps demonstrate the range of appli- cability of the general syllogistic model of cross-cultural communication. (b) It can sensitize us to the kinds of cul- ture patterns which may be contained in the silent assumptions comprising the major premise of the model. (c) In some instances it helps suggest prac- tical procedures for us to use in discover- ing the specific barriers in a concrete situation. Some of the units include certain linguistic tools (such as Colombianismos and specialized vocabularies in Spanish) or paralinguistic factors (gestures or expressions) likely to be associated with the particular settings in which the non-lin- guistic barriers were discovered. This should increase the practical value of units where the linguistic and non-linguistic factors are closely intertwined. "As the Spanish proverb says, 'He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him,' so it is in traveling,a man must carry knowledge with him if he would bring home knowledge." Boswell, Life of Dr. Johnson amlissm, INITIALIMMERSION IN THE FOREIGN CU7DTURE Foundations for potential cross-culturalmiscommunication are firmly laid as we assimilate ourown culture. This poten- tial is suddenly converted into thereal dynamic process the moment we arrive ina foreign country. "Foreigners are people somewhere else, Natives are people at home, If the place you're at isyour habitat, You're a foreigner,say, in Rome."1 As soon.as the American arrives, he is immediatelycon- verted into a foreigner. A large portion of his initial com- munication with the foreign cultureis a visual exchange. The newly arrived foreigner is alleyes and ears. His first audi- tory and vlsual imagesare cluttered with excitement, confu- sion, surprise, mis-observations,and even conflict. At the same time, he is making an impression on the nationals. Often he expects this initial confrontationto be the principal impact phase of cultureshock when in fact it is mainly a euphoric state of excitement. The novelty of the situ- ation tends to neutralize the superficialshocks,